Laid to rest with care: Ancient infants, perhaps twins, found in 1,200-year-old latrine
More than 1,000 years ago, two babies were tucked away in an abandoned Roman toilet channel. Yet, despite what the location suggests, they were cherished, not discarded.
The tiny cist grave lay hidden in an ancient Roman concert hall, lined with tiles and stones, near one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis. Within were the remains of two babies, who may never have seen the light of day. They may have been twins, which would have made them rare enough, but the discovery of a tiny extra rib in the neck—only the second ever found in an infant from an archaeological site—makes them rarer still.
"As soon as we discovered the burial, it was clear … that this was not a case of simply disposing of the infant bodies," said archaeologist Lilli Zabrana from the Austrian Archaeological Institute, "but rather a very thoughtful preparation of a final resting place."
Laid to rest in a toilet
According to the study published in Childhood in the Past, the babies were found in an odeion, a Roman building meant for music and speeches. It was built nearly 2,000 years ago in Ephesos, Turkey, during the 1st century A.D., and had a public toilet added around a century later. After a fierce fire, the building was abandoned, used only for butcher's scraps and the disposal of broken pottery.
By the time the babies were buried there between the 8th and 9th centuries A.D., the latrine had not been used for centuries, but the toilet's channel was still perfectly intact.
The channel provided a sheltered, hidden grave where the two babies were laid side by side. Measurements of their arm bones suggest both were born about six weeks early, if they drew breath at all.
Whoever had laid them to rest had placed them on a bed of earth they had carried from somewhere else. Then the babies were "probably wrapped in shrouds, which reflects particular care in their funerary treatment," said study lead author Caroline Partiot, a bioarchaeologist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute.
Challenging life, undisturbed death
Among the tiny remains, researchers found a mysterious bone. It was an extra rib growing from a neck vertebra, just 5 millimeters long. A similar case has been reported in only one other infant grave. Though harmless in those reaching adulthood, in babies, its appearance is often linked to genetic and developmental problems, including tumors and stillbirths, the study said.
Based on their similar age, size and time of burial, the study suggests they might have been twins, which comes with its own set of dangers, from early birth to possibly being labeled ill omens. These babies had life set on hard mode from the moment of conception.
Why they weren't buried in a cemetery is uncertain. In Byzantine Ephesos, only people who had been baptized could be buried in consecrated ground, and babies were usually only baptized weeks after birth, a condition these babies never met. But the odeion stood inside the ancient temple's boundaries and may have been a suitable alternative. "Did the site of the former sanctuary of Artemis still hold spiritual significance for the twins' parents at that time?" Zabrana wondered.
What the study can say is that infant burials are rare, twin burials even more so, but their unusual grave location protected them for more than a thousand years and "allowed them to rest in peace, undisturbed …"
"This discovery shows us how close ancient populations actually were to us," Partiot said, "and that they cared for vulnerable individuals, contrary to many preconceived ideas."
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More information
Caroline Partiot et al, Peace in Unexpected Places: The Middle Byzantine Burial of Two Perinates, Possibly Twins, in a Latrine Canal of the Odeion in the Artemision of Ephesos, Childhood in the Past (2026). DOI: 10.1080/17585716.2026.2682804
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Citation: Laid to rest with care: Ancient infants, perhaps twins, found in 1,200-year-old latrine (2026, August 2) retrieved 2 August 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-laid-rest-ancient-infants-twins.html
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